THE PROPHET IN TECHNICOLOR…COMING SOON

Posted By on November 23rd, 2009

The National Post (Canada)

From The Times of London:

Life of Muhammad to be filmed, but don’t expect to see him on screen
By Ben Hoyle, Arts Correspondent

In Hollywood terms, it was the greatest story almost never told – until now.

With Middle Eastern money becoming an increasingly powerful cog in the global entertainment industry, it was perhaps inevitable that, sooner or later, someone would embark on a mega-budget epic about the life of the Prophet Mohammed.

That moment has arrived thanks to a wealthy Qatari media company which has put together a team featuring a crack Hollywood producer and a Muslim cleric who is banned from visiting Britain to bring the project to life.

Plans for the $150million English-language biopic were announced at the close of the Doha Tribeca Film Festival in Qatar. The narrative will run from the years before the Prophet’s birth through to his death but there will be one conspicuous break from conventional biopic methods: in accordance with Islamic tradition the film will not represent the Prophet himself or direct members of his family.

A source close to the project said that Mel Gibson’s hugely successful (and gruesome) crucifixion film The Passion of the Christ had proved that there was a demand for religious-themed entertainment…


[Tom Gross writes:] The film is scheduled to be produced by Barrie Osborne, a producer on The Lord of the Rings films and The Matrix. It is being financed by Al-Noor Holdings, a media company that has created a $200million film production fund to invest in Hollywood. Al-Noor Holdings has hired the cleric Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi as their lead theological consultant for the film.

Sheikh al-Qaradawi is one of the Sunni Islam’s most high-profile theologians thanks to his popular show on al-Jazeera TV. He is a highly controversial figure who was refused entry to Britain last year because of his views. He has condoned the Holocaust, supported the stoning of homosexuals, praised suicide bombers, and denounced Shia Muslims as heretics.

Shooting for the yet-untitled picture is scheduled to start in 2011.

A previous film on the life of Mohammed, called The Message, made in 1977 and starring Anthony Quinn, sparked riots in the U.S. in which two people died, even though it respected the tradition of not representing the Prophet himself. The film is currently being remade as The Messenger of Peace.

More recently, satirical cartoons of the Prophet published in Denmark in 2006 provoked violent protests leading to hundreds of deaths worldwide, from Nigeria to Bangladesh.

Last year the planned British publication of a novel about the Prophet Muhammad’s child bride was shelved after threats of violence.

PICTORIAL PORTRAYALS OF MOHAMMED: FROM TINTIN TO SOUTH PARK TO SALVADOR DALI

The pictorial portrayal of Mohammed is not forbidden in the Koran, but only in relatively recent interpretations of Sharia law. Scroll down to the second section here for some examples of Muslims themselves portraying Mohammed. Such depictions were commonplace until the modern growth of Islamic fundamentalism.

Below: Mohammed advancing on Mecca, with the angels Gabriel, Michael, Israfil and Azrail (16th century Ottoman illustration.)


 


There have also been many unfavorable or irreverent representations and pictures about Mohammed that failed to elicit the same kind of anger as the Danish cartoons, since Islamic fundamentalists didn’t choose to exploit them.

Below: Mohammed by Salvador Dali

From a Tintin comic book, 1977


 


 

This early Renaissance fresco in Bologna’s Church of San Petronio, created by Giovanni da Modena, depicts Mohammed being tortured in Hell

Other examples here.

  

  

Tom Gross is a former Middle East correspondent for the London Sunday Telegraph and the New York Daily News. 

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